by Derek Wilson
is the chief of Lord Robert’s enemies, who are all the principal people in the kingdom . . . he said that if Lord Robert did not abandon his present pretentions and presumptions, he would not die in his bed . . . I think his hatred of Lord Robert will continue, as the Duke and the rest of them cannot put up with his being king.22
In November, Howard almost came to blows with Dudley whom he accused of introducing himself into the government of the realm. Within days the duke found himself ‘promoted’ to a new job – Lieutenant General in the North. Very reluctantly he was obliged to set out for Newcastle to do battle with the Scots and to abandon the campaign at court.
Norfolk was right in identifying Dudley as a significant player in the political life of the nation. The royal favourite was no mere court exotic, fopping around the queen’s chambers. He may not have been a brilliant, original thinker but he did have clear religious and political convictions and he did discuss the issues of the day with his royal mistress. His potential importance had been recognized as early as November 1558 when Feria had made the incorrect assumption that Robert was a member of the new Council. Cecil’s policy of depoliticizing the chamber was now rebounding on him. Instead of depriving the queen’s household of any influence in state affairs it had created the circumstances for the emergence of a favourite who could, and did, discuss matters of moment with the queen without being at all answerable to the Council. This provoked some fresh thinking as early as May 1559. A memorandum circulating in government circles and headed ‘for redress of the state of the Realm’ recommended that all the senior officials of the household and the chamber should be members of the Council. For the time being, however, Dudley had to content himself with being an unofficial politician.
Unofficial but active, and never more so than in the tense foreign situation which confronted England after the sudden death of Henri II in a jousting accident in July 1559. Since Mary Stuart, wife of the new fifteen-year-old king, Francis II, was the Scottish queen the crowns of England’s closest enemies were now brought together. With France and Spain enjoying one of their rare interludes of peace and Mary vigorously asserting her claim to the English throne, the foreign situation was grave indeed, but the Council was divided on the advice they gave. Cecil and his supporters, who saw international affairs in terms of a Catholic conspiracy against the Protestant nation, were for launching a preemptive military strike against Scotland in order to forestall an anticipated Franco–Scottish invasion. Others were disposed to proceed by diplomacy. By forging an alliance with the Protestant Lords of the Congregation they hoped to create a strong bond between the neighbouring nations and force Mary to grant religious freedom to her subjects. This was the policy Elizabeth preferred and she was supported in it by Dudley. He now headed a group in the chamber to whom the queen turned for advice more readily than the full Council. Lord Robert enjoyed his own political network thanks to his clients in various parts of the country and his contacts abroad. During the Scottish crisis he often corresponded with Maitland of Lethington, the leader of the Scottish Protestant nobles. What frequently drove Mr Secretary to distraction was not a disagreement with Dudley over policy fundamentals; they shared an ardent Protestant nationalism. It was in their attitude to the queen that the two men differed. To Cecil, Elizabeth was a headstrong young woman who ought to leave the serious business of government to older and wiser heads. For Dudley she was queen. She should be supported in her determination to rule effectively. Cecil grumbled that, if his advice was to be constantly ignored or rejected, he might as well not be there and the threat of resignation became for him a favourite ploy. The Council thought it prudent to strengthen the border garrisons and this was one reason why Norfolk was dispatched northwards at the end of the year. In May 1560 Elizabeth was vindicated when Norfolk’s attempt to seize Leith turned into an expensive flop which resulted in a thousand English fatalities. The queen was furious. She berated Cecil and immediately sent him to Edinburgh to patch up the best treaty he could.
This really worried the Secretary. He knew that Dudley had been opposed to his aggressive policy and suspected that the favourite was behind the decision to send him away from court. It is highly unlikely that Robert Dudley wanted to remove Cecil from his trusted position as the Queen’s principal adviser or that Elizabeth would have dismissed him but he certainly made the most of the councillor’s absence to settle a few old scores and nudge religious policy in a radical direction. Several deprived bishops and Marian officials who had been allowed to live in semi-retirement or had their movements only slightly restricted were now thrust into prison. On 10 June Nicholas Heath, late Archbishop of York, was sent to the Tower. He was swiftly followed by John Boxall, Mary’s secretary, the erstwhile bishops of Exeter and Bath and Wells, and others.23
Meanwhile, thanks largely to the French court being distracted by a crop of domestic problems, Cecil was able to achieve what, under the circumstances, was a very reasonable settlement with the Scots. That was not how the queen perceived it. On his return the Secretary was hauled over the coals for his ‘failure’, which plunged him into black despair as he explained in a letter to the Earl of Bedford.
The court is as I left it and therefore do I mind to leave it, as I have too much cause, if I durst write all. As soon as I can get Sir Nicholas Throckmorton placed [as Secretary] so soon I purpose to withdraw myself, which if I cannot do with ease I will rather adventure some small displeasure for so have I cause rather to do than to continue with a perpetual displeasure to myself and my foolish conscience.24
Rightly or wrongly, Cecil now believed that he was fighting for his political life against the evil machinations of Robert Dudley. But he was not seriously contemplating retirement from public life. Mr Secretary Cecil had not yet played his last card. Nor had fate.
14
Death and Transfiguration
Edney, with my hearty commendations, these shall be to desire you to take ye pains for me as to make this gown of velvet, which I send you with such a collar as you made my russet taffeta gown you sent me last and I will see you discharged for all. I pray you let it be done with as much speed as you can . . .1
These, the last words of Amy Dudley that have survived, were written to her dressmaker on 24 August 1560. They deal with trivia, but trivia that were important to Amy. She loved fine clothes and was impatient to receive the latest addition to her wardrobe. They are not the words of a young woman contemplating death. A few weeks later one of her servants claimed that she had often heard her mistress pray that God would deliver her from her desperation but, on being pressed, the girl denied strenuously that Lady Dudley harboured any thoughts of harming herself. Her desperation may have been caused by physical pain or by feelings of inadequacy as a wife or by the malicious gossip she had to endure about the queen and her husband – or by any combination of these distressing circumstances. However resilient she was, it would be remarkable if her unusual married life did not result in occasional mood swings.
Amy wrote her letter from Cumnor Place, near Oxford, which had become her principal residence at the beginning of the year. It was altogether more suited to her needs than Mr Hyde’s house at Denchworth. The move had been arranged by Dudley in collaboration with his old friend and steward, Anthony Forster. This substantial fourteenth-century house built round a square courtyard had been designed as a summer residence for the Benedictine abbots of Abingdon and was acquired by the royal physician Dr George Owen at the Dissolution. Forster now leased it from William Owen, the doctor’s son. Here the cultured and congenial Forster provided a home for his own family and for three single ladies who either did not choose or could not afford to run their own establishments. They included Dr Owen’s elderly widow, Elizabeth Odingsells, a widowed sister of William Hyde and Lady Dudley. It may not have been the most stimulating company for a lively young woman but it was commodious and comfortable. And it was close enough to the court for Robert to be able to visit whenever he could escape, especially when th
e court was on summer progress west of the capital.
At the beginning of September the court arrived at Windsor, a morning’s ride away from Cumnor. William Cecil was there and he was still suffering the frustration of the bureaucrat who has lost control of events. His access to the queen was limited and he was convinced that policy was being made by Dudley and his friends, who outranked the Secretary and had their own private political networks. He must have been desperately worried about his own future as well as the state of the country for he now did something utterly disreputable, if not akin to treason. The Spanish ambassador, de Quadra, arrived at Windsor on Friday 6 September and one of the first people to seek him out was Cecil. The diplomat was not a natural confidant; he mistrusted the Secretary and loathed his ardent Protestantism. However, he was on good terms with Dudley and was respected by the queen and it may have been that Cecil was using him as a conduit to convey his message to the royal ear. This is how de Quadra reported to his master the dramatic interview:
. . . after my many protestations and entreaties that I would keep secret what he was about to tell me, he said that the Queen was going on so strangely that he was about to withdraw from her service . . . he perceived the most manifest ruin impending over the Queen through her intimacy with Lord Robert. The Lord Robert had made himself master of the business of the state and of the person of the Queen, to the extreme injury of the realm, with the intention of marrying her, and she herself was shutting herself up in the palace to the peril of her health and life. That the realm would tolerate the marriage he said he did not believe. He was, therefore, determined to retire into the country although he supposed they would send him to the Tower before they would let him go. He implored me for the love of God to remonstrate with the Queen, to persuade her not utterly to throw herself away as she was doing, and to remember what she owed to herself and to her subjects. Of Lord Robert he said twice that he would be better in paradise than here . . . Last of all, he said that they were thinking of destroying Lord Robert’s wife. They had given out that she was ill, but she was not ill at all; she was very well and taking care not to be poisoned. God, he trusted, would never permit such a crime to be accomplished or so wretched a conspiracy to prosper.2
This slanderous tittle tattle was the kind of talk for which lesser people were being examined by local magistrates and stood in the pillory. But Cecil’s repetition of gossip was not the spontaneous outburst of an irresponsible official to the representative of a foreign and potentially hostile, Catholic power. It was a deliberate leak by a master politician. It also became the prologue to the most notorious episode in Robert Dudley’s life. For, on Sunday 8 September, his wife did die, and she died suddenly and violently.
According to the reconstruction of the fateful day by Lord Robert’s agents, it began with an argument. It was the first day of Abingdon Fair, a highlight of the Berkshire social calendar, and Amy seemed intent that the entire Cumnor household should go off and enjoy it. When Mrs Odingsells demurred, on the grounds that it was beneath her dignity to rub shoulders with servants, Lady Dudley became petulant and the two women exchanged harsh words. Elizabeth Odingsells went off to her room and Amy to hers. The bulk of the household then set out for the fair, leaving Cumnor Place almost deserted. A few hours later Amy dined alone with old Mrs Owen, who was the last person to see her alive. That evening the servants returned, presumably in high spirits, and resumed their various duties. It was, perhaps, as one of them was going through the hall with a lighted taper for lamps and rushlights that he made the dreadful discovery of Lady Dudley sprawled at the foot of the shallow staircase leading to her first floor chambers. Her clothing was undisturbed but her neck was broken.
These are the bare facts of one of the most celebrated mysteries in English history. The details of Amy’s death and the subsequent investigation have been pored over by historians and fiction writers ever since. The consensus of scholarly opinion is that Lady Dudley died as the result of a tragic accident and this agrees with the findings of the coroner’s jury. That verdict has never satisfied conspiracy theorists or sensation seekers. Until well into the twentieth century local legend spoke of the poor lady’s unquiet ghost wandering Cumnor Park before being exorcised by no less than nine Oxford clergy. It was the common perception, rather than the factual details, which was of greatest concern to those most closely involved. Robert’s immediate reaction bears this out. He sent the following message to his chief household officer, Sir Thomas Blount, on 10 September.
The greatness and the suddenness of the misfortune doth so perplex me, until I do hear from you how the matter standeth, or how this evil should light upon me, considering what the malicious world will bruit, as I can take no rest. And, because I have no way to purge myself of the malicious talk that I know the wicked world will use, but one which is the very plain truth to be known, I do pray you, as you have loved me, and do tender me and my quietness, and as now my special trust is in you, that [you] will use all the devises and means you can possible for the learning of the truth; wherein have no respect to any living person.3
Elizabeth, also, was thrown into dismayed confusion. That same day she told de Quadra that Lady Dudley was ‘dead or nearly so’ and begged him to keep the news secret. It was a couple of days, however, before she could bring herself to acknowledge what everyone at court already knew: ‘Si ha rotto il collo [literally, “she has broken her neck”, the reflexive verb implying accident, rather than the agency of another]. She must have fallen down a staircase.’4 The queen was in shock, at first not wanting to believe the worst (Amy might be only ‘nearly’ dead) and then anxious to make it clear to everyone that there was nothing suspicious about Lady Dudley’s fatal misadventure. For the moment she was bearing the brunt of the tragedy. Robert had plenty to occupy him; giving instructions for the summoning of an impartial coroner’s jury to get at the truth, sending messengers to Amy’s relatives and beginning to make arrangements for the funeral. Elizabeth could only fret and pine and fume and worry about the fallout from this event which had turned her life upside down. She was pale and irritable and kept herself shut up in her private apartments most of the time. One of her few positive acts in the immediate aftermath of the Cumnor affair was to distance herself from it. She dispatched Robert to a house at Kew she had recently given him, with instructions to stay there until the coroner’s verdict was known. De Quadra accurately assessed her distracted state: ‘I am not sure if she will marry the man at once, or even if she will marry at all, as I do not think she has her mind sufficiently fixed.’5
With the shock waves of the affair still reverberating no one could assess its political implications and the wildest speculation was rife. De Quadra, who, of course, saw English events in terms of their international implications, was far from dismayed at the prospect of Cecil leaving office but prophesied a period of dire confusion:
These quarrels among themselves and Cecil’s retirement from office will do no harm to a good cause. We could not have to do with anyone worse than he has been. But likely enough a revolution may come of it. The Queen may be sent to the Tower and they may make a king of the Earl of Huntingdon [Francis Hastings (father-in-law of Robert’s sister Catherine) may have been seen as a candidate by a few Protestant extremists, as was his son later], who is a great heretic, calling in a party of France to help them.6
The ambassador’s words reflect the dislocation of the moment rather than any well-considered view of the situation but they do reveal the extravagant ideas which were being openly discussed.
The only person to profit from the chaos was William Cecil. Within days Elizabeth sent him to Kew with messages for the ‘prisoner’ there. All thought of resignation was abandoned but the Secretary was careful to avoid any triumphalism. He was far too clever to risk making an enemy of the queen’s favourite, as Dudley’s thank-you letter clearly reveals:
Sir, I thank you very much for your being here, and the great friendship you have shown towards me I shall not
forget. I am very loath to wish you here again but I would be very glad to be with you there. I pray you let me hear from you, what you think best for me to do. If you doubt, I pray you ask the question [i.e. if you do not know what to advise me ask the queen if she will permit me to return], for the sooner you can advise me [to come] thither, the more I shall thank you.7
Robert and Elizabeth waited tensely for the coroner’s verdict but must have known that they had already been tried and convicted by the jury of public opinion at home and abroad and that that conviction would not be altered by mere facts. Through Blount, Dudley urged the twelve good men and true of Cumnor and district to reach an impartial decision and they eventually declared that Lady Dudley had met her death by misadventure. The queen received Robert at court and declared the matter closed. Of course, it was not closed. The scandal vibrated along the diplomatic wires and Nicholas Throckmorton in Paris was not the only ambassador to find his job made almost impossible. Mary and Francis were making the most of Elizabeth’s discomfiture and Throckmorton reported that he could not bring himself to repeat the vile calumnies current in the French capital. His prognostication of what would happen if Elizabeth were to marry the newly widowed Dudley were as alarmist as de Quadra’s: ‘God and religion . . . shall be out of estimation; the queen, our sovereign, discredited, condemned and neglected; our country ruined, undone and made prey.’8 Throckmorton wrote via Cecil and directly to the queen in this trenchant vein until the secretary warned him off. Such language, he told his colleague, was counterproductive. Elizabeth’s response was fiercely unequivocal. She said that ‘the matter had been tried in the country and found to be contrary to that which was reported, saying that [Robert] was then in the court and none of his [people] at the attempt at his wife’s house, and that it fell out as should neither touch his honesty nor her honour.’9